[krs]

I'm shortly going to end up with the following Macs in one large house

1.42GHz Mac Mini on OS 10.3.9
700 MHz EMac on OS 10,2,x
1,25 GHz Mac tower on 10.4.8
450 MHz AGP Mac tower on 10.4.10
New MacBook
New MacBook Pro

And I'm hoping to hook all of these up to an existing wireless router to access Sympatico.
The MacMini has built in wireless, so that should be OK; the two new MacBooks will include whatever wireess comes with them standard,

But the EMac, AGP Mac and 1.25 GHz Mac have no wireless capability.

The original Airport card which will fit at least into the AGP and 1.25GHz Mac is about $60 pus shipping on ebay - not sure if the EMac will even take that.

As an alternative I was looking at a USB adapter like this one for all three units that don't have wireless capability
http://cgi.ebay.ca/USB-Wireless-ada...ryZ80060QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Is anyone using one of these? Any comments pro or con? The price is reasonable but how well do these work.
The Macs will be in a three story house with 10 ft ceilings; the router would be on the second floor - I gess the max, distance from router to furthest Mac would be 30 feet.

Other choice is to run ethernet cables all over the house.

 

[thegreenapple]

ok the emac will take the airport card i think it is behind the face plate of the cd/dvd rom


as for that usb wireless key it might work
but i have used in the past the DWL-122 from dlink with no issues
i think the DWL-122G works with OSX also
but i try to use the airport cards as that frees up the usb port

hope this helps

 

[EvanPitts]

But the EMac, AGP Mac and 1.25 GHz Mac have no wireless capability.
As an alternative I was looking at a USB adapter like this one for all three units that don't have wireless capability
Is anyone using one of these? Any comments pro or con? The price is reasonable but how well do these work.
Other choice is to run ethernet cables all over the house.

After some experimenting... The newer DLink-122G's do not work. They changed the chipset and there are no drivers for the new revisions. Nothing on the box tells the absolute truth, we had two of them; one worked and one didn't, and they were only 100 or so serial numbers between them.

However, the newer DLink WUA-1340 USB adaptor does work, as it has the Ralink chipset. We have not had any issues with this adapter during five months of running. It comes with a base stand, so the width of the adapter does not interfere with the other connections on the Mac, or on a hub. I made sure to buy it at a place that I could return it, just in case. I bought mine on sale for $49 at Staples, though one could probably buy it cheaper. The box does not mention Mac compatibility, but the driver is from Ralink rather than DLink. It is "G", but since it is connected to USB, I can't really get any more throughput than "B". However, fastest download was clocked at 550kB/s, and that was with two torrents downloading at slower speeds in the background.

I tried a number of NetGear adapters, and none of them worked. One of them does not even have a "chipset". The firmware is downloaded to it from the Windoze driver, and is no longer supported because it will not work with Vista. I can not recall the model number, but it is one of those cheap ones that they give away with cheap systems. We even had pretty poor performance on an XP system, with frequent unexplained lockups. Some other NetGear adapters require the further purchase of an OrangeWare driver, so in the end, the DLink was actually cheaper.

We also experimented with one called "Blanc", that looks like the one you found on EBay. It almost worked, but the chipset (I can't recall the name off hand) is no longer supported because the company that made the chipset is out of business as of late 2006. We could not find a driver and by all reports, the driver broke when run under Tiger 10.4.4 or above...

The other thing that would work is to buy a few Linksys Ethernet adapters. I have not experimented with them yet, but the local surplus store has a number of "B" type adapters for $15 each. Perhaps a little slow for streaming video; but plenty of speed per dollar for spooling print jobs and transfering files.

 

[krs]

Thanks for you commenst and informatiom TGA and EP.

There were a few other USB sticks on ebay. Different USB stick form factor and somewhat higher price.
But getting this to work reliably seems to be a crap shoot - maybe I need to forget trying to save some money and go for the airport catd or just try to run ethernet cables all over the house.
Anyone have the airport card working with 10.4.10?

 

[gadgetguy]

Hey everyone, I'm a newbie on here but I have had many years of experience with Macs.

I have a PowerMac G4 that I would like to move to a part of a house that does not have wired ethernet but I need to have internet access. I have a D-Link WBR-1310 wireless G router. My friend gave me her WUA-1340 USB wireless stick b/c she doesn't need it anymore and I'd like to get that to work. In this thread I see that EvanPitts got it to work and I was wondering where I could get a driver?

Thanks!

 

[duosonic]

Had the same experience as EvanPitts, on an iMac DV G3400 - the older USB stick works just fine.

 

[gadgetguy]

OK, and where did you get the driver?

 

[Gerbill]

The eMac and the 1.25 MHz G4 will certainly take the original AirPort card (if you can find them). So, that only leaves the AGP Graphics (aka Sawtooth) to deal with. Maybe you could just put it close to the router and wire it into the network.

 

[gadgetguy]

I am not krs, I'm someone else with a similar issue and I simply want to know how to make the wireless USB receiver to work on my PowerMac G4. In other words, I just need to know where I can download the driver from.

 

[HowEver]

That reminds me, I have another one of these, still sealed:

WiFi USB2 wireless "B/G" adapter *AND* hotspot detector! self-recharges
http://www.ehmac.ca/classifieds/showproduct.php?product=6093&sort=1&cat=all&page=1

It's also a hotspot finder, so you don't have to take out your computer until you've read on the LCD on this device that there's a wifi network. Handy, no? Good for home use also.

 

[duosonic]

I have the D-Link USB driver1.4.7 - don't remember where I downloaded it from (probably the Dlink website). If you PM me with your email address, I'll try sending it to you.

 

[EvanPitts]

I have a D-Link WBR-1310 wireless G router. My friend gave me her WUA-1340 USB wireless stick b/c she doesn't need it anymore and I'd like to get that to work. In this thread I see that EvanPitts got it to work and I was wondering where I could get a driver?

The WUA-1340 uses the Ralink driver, which can be found at:

http://www.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support/Macintosh.html

DLink does not "support" Macs per se, the driver is supplied by the chipset manufacturer. If you plug in the adapter run the System Profiler, it should say that the manufacturer is Ralink. There is a chance that it is not Ralink as for some reason, they do not change model numbers when they change the chipset!

There are alot of notes on the Internet about various problems, but much of that has been entirely eliminated with the new driver. However, make sure that you do not unplug the adapter while the driver is active because that managed to lock up two of my iBooks when I did it by mistake (though curiously the Lombard did not hang).

The adapter is now used daily, and is alive and running on a Lombard (which can not accept an Airport), as I have an Airport Card for my own machine. Throughput is limited and you will never attain "G" speeds because of the USB connection, but I normally had a connection of 120-160 kB/s; and off of one particularilty sweet wireless zone, 350-400 kB/s. This is not too far from the actual throughput I get with the Airport Card.

 

[krs]

I bought two Airport cards on ebay, one for $41 and the other for $42.

I decided that was a better option than a USB stick considering the little money I would have saved with a USB stick - the questionable performance and the loss of a USB port.
Now all I need is another Airport card and to get rid of the Airport Express card I bought by mistake thinking that's what the 1.25 G4 would take.

 

[jlcinc]

The WUA-1340 uses the Ralink driver, which can be found at:

Ralink Technology: Macintosh

DLink does not "support" Macs per se, the driver is supplied by the chipset manufacturer. If you plug in the adapter run the System Profiler, it should say that the manufacturer is Ralink. There is a chance that it is not Ralink as for some reason, they do not change model numbers when they change the chipset!

There are alot of notes on the Internet about various problems, but much of that has been entirely eliminated with the new driver. However, make sure that you do not unplug the adapter while the driver is active because that managed to lock up two of my iBooks when I did it by mistake (though curiously the Lombard did not hang).

The adapter is now used daily, and is alive and running on a Lombard (which can not accept an Airport), as I have an Airport Card for my own machine. Throughput is limited and you will never attain "G" speeds because of the USB connection, but I normally had a connection of 120-160 kB/s; and off of one particularilty sweet wireless zone, 350-400 kB/s. This is not too far from the actual throughput I get with the Airport Card.

Hi Evan,

Do you think this DLink WUA-1340 USB adaptor will work with my OS 9 Clamshell Ibook?

Thanks,

John

 

[EvanPitts]

Do you think this DLink WUA-1340 USB adaptor will work with my OS 9 Clamshell Ibook?

I think the problem will be the lack of drivers for OS9. Physically the DLink should work off of the USB, but the lack of a driver would be a major stumbling block. And I am not even sure if an adapter that has a "Lucent / Orinoco" chipset would help either. I would doubt that Ralink would bother writing a driver for OS9; as it took long enough for them to write one for OSX!

What you could use, if you do not need to haul around the wireless to places far away from power plugs, is to use a Wireless Ethernet Adaptor. Then the machine would think the wireless was an Ethernet and you would not need any special drivers. I have seen older models of Linksys on sale for $20 that would serve such a purpose at "B" speeds; and the machine could actually run at "G" speeds because the Clamshell has 100 Mbs Ethernet...

Of course, you could upgrade the Clamshell so that it would run OSX Panther, but that is perhaps a fair amount of work because you would really need 256MB of memory and at least a 10GB HD to crank the system over.

 

[jlcinc]

Hi Evan,

I am sorry to be such a slow learner. But what is a wireless ethernet adapter. I would go into staples and ask them but they would look at me and say "Mac I don't think it will work".

Thanks,

John